Biblically, the death penalty could not be applied unless there were at least two eyewitnesses to the incident. Circumstantial evidence, even when strong, is not the equivalent of multiple eyewitnesses and therefore does not meet the Biblical standard. Interestingly, however, the Bible long ago acknowledged a specific eyewitness that only in recent decades has become recognized in Americans courts.

Recall the account of Cain's murder of his brother Abel from Genesis 4:8-10. When God asked Cain where his brother was and Cain lied, God specifically confronted him with the declaration: "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground" (v. 10). Blood cries out? Blood has a voice? How can that be? We now know that DNA has a voice - that it serves as an eyewitness to specific crimes, just as when it cried out to God about Abel's death. This voice therefore Biblically qualifies as one of the "two or three eyewitnesses" needed to secure the death penalty in a capital crime.

Except for all those times when DNA evidence has shown that eyewitness testimony, even of "two or three witnesses" is often very unreliable and subject to conscious and unconscious manipulation by the police, lawyers and simply the passage of time.

Not to mention, I seem to recall your invisible sky-daddy doing an awful lot of murdering of his own so this just proves yet again how a society only advances when it rejects examples set in a collection of myths written about the war-god of a desert nomad tribe of bronze age people.

This voice therefore Biblically qualifies as one of the "two or three eyewitnesses" needed to secure the death penalty in a capital crime.

You're really reaching here. But regardless, your bible has no standing in the U.S. government. Even then, the call for people to be put to death in the bible contradicts the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

Actually, except for the white blood cells, blood doesn't have DNA. And DNA doesn't have eyes. And the requirement of two witnesses appears in the Constitution in the definition of treason - hardly "recent decades". Nor does the biblical death penalty always require eyewitnesses. When a woman is raped in the city, she gets the death penalty specifically because there were no witnesses; therefore the sex must have been consensual because she didn't cry out and attract help (Deut. 23-24) Likewise, she's stoned to death if she isn't a virgin, as evidenced by the lack of blood on the sheets from the wedding night.

There's no specific requirement for eyewitnesses in US criminal courts. There were no eyewitnesses to the Unabomber killing his victims. The case against him was entirely based on forensics. He only avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty.

Barton's inventing his own language, in which DNA, blood, the ground and other inanimate forensic evidence are redefined as "eyewitnesses" in order to salvage his hypothesis.

Witnesses are least reliable of any of the tools at a police investigators disposal. They can lie, see something incorrectly, add detail that wasn't there when prodded by "memory experts".
In short, circumstantial evidence is essential to supplement and confirm eyewitness accounts.
As for the Bible, it has no basis in our secular courts and doesn't belong there. Case closed.

The RightWing Evagalist circles have been making claims of Biblical founding and lawmaking for years. Their problem? They have no evidence for that claim, if only we could make things up and get these fabrication published as history.

Enter totally unqualified and dishonest David Barton. Rightwing medias new hero and go to source for bullshit backup.

Look out America, with these charter and voucher schools popping up in Republican states this assholes books will be accepted a history texts. The Dominionist movement is gaining traction in Dumbfuckastan with support from churchs and the media for lieing shits like Barton.

Ok, so at the time of the alledged killing (an act against which your god had yet to issue a commandment), the population of the planet Earth stood at precisely 4. And your all-knowing, all-seeing deity failed to notice when 25% of the population killed another 25%?

Thank you David, for proving once again, what a steaming pile of crap your idiotic mythology is.

And I don't think the death penalty should be applied at all. Like others have said, eyewitness testimony is iffy at best and I don't trust prosecutors to actually care about justice. They are mainly interested in winning reputations for themselves; I wouldn't put it past them to hide DNA evidence in a capital case.

Eyewitnesses are the worst type of evidence: even when they're not consciously lying they subconsciously fill in details based on their own assumptions and expectations.

Forensic evidence is not above reproach either. Labs can screw up, experts may not be so expert, and a lot of procedures (e.g. fingerprint analysis) haven't been scientifically vetted.

(EDIT: As someone mentioned above, trials are far from quests for truth; often it's a "tough on crime" prosecutor and all the machinery of the state vs. an overworked and inexperienced public defender.)

With all this potential for error, the only option is to REPEAL THE DEATH PENALTY, period. As a counterexample, look at Texas, which has executed prisoners in SPITE of suggestive and sometimes conclusive evidence exonerating the prisoner. The Innocence Project in Dallas turns up dozens of wrongful convictions, maybe because they're looking.